Tomkins does look good against teams over here but get in with the big boys and he does not shine. Paul wellens said that ? Oh well must be right then I mean he has never come up short in big games has he

Exactly. You put it a little more succintly than me

No doubt the lad is a talent....but if any SL coach is worth his salt next season he will have his best field kicker practicing those high bombs with a good kick chase from the remainder of his team.

Just have to hope we don't have a biased video ref

After watching a whole season of Wigan matches I've not noticed any greater susceptibility to bombs by Sam Tomkins than most other SL fullbacks. He's not as good as some but better than others. I was trying to get stats for his success rate at catching bombs, but there doesn't seem to be any easily available. However, based on just a count of just general errors, he compares favourably with rlBrent Webbrl and rlBrett Hodgsonrl. Not much difference really.

Oh I'm sure you're right......but the others are not the major threat that Tomkins is attacking from FB and therefore it's not [ias[/i paramount to test them in this same specific way.
The lad has to be negated by the opposition somehow and I think the New Zealanders and especially the Aussies have shown how best to do that.

It's not just the high kick, but the accompanying kick chase that has to be perfected.

I thought, discounting the couple of errors, it was striking how quickly the Aussies got men around Tomkins when he fielded kicks to shut down his threat on the counter attack. It was clearly a threat they were aware of and they handled it very well. In credit to Sam Tomkins, its probably been a while since we had a player that the Aussies felt motivated to single out tactically in that way. If you leave the kid a gap in your line he'll be gone and he's lethal when he gets into broken field situations. You have to give some credit to the Aussies for not letting that happen.